In recent years, mobile terminals including cellular phones are widely and commonly used, and the number of users has been increasing. In particular, recently, exchanges of messages through transmission/reception of e-mails by use of mobile terminals such as a cellular phone and PDA are widely and routinely performed. Moreover, mobile terminals are equipped with various function units and applications such as a digital camera, GPS and non-contact IC card function, thereby offering an increasing range of functions. Thus convenience of users has been improved dramatically.
In Japan, due to a revision of the Ordinance of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (Regulations for Telecommunications Facilities for Telecommunications Business), the 3G (third generation) cellular phone terminals released on and after April 2007 are required to have a function for notifying the departments concerned of the location information of the terminal at the time of transmission of an emergency message. Consequently, it seems that, among the functions incorporated in the mobile terminals, in particularly, a GPS (Global Positioning System) will become more common. The same trend has occurred outside Japan such as US and Europe, and it is expected that mobile terminals provided with the GPS will be widely used all over the world in the future. With respect to such mobile terminals provided with a navigation function by the GPS, various terminals have been suggested, and one example is described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-341476.
The cellular phone described in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-341476 can, as a normal cellular phone, communicate with another cellular phone by radio and, in addition display the present location obtained by a GPS reception unit and a GPS image data generation routine on a liquid crystal display by a map, whereby the user of the cellular phone can know his/her present location almost exactly.
The user who moves with such a cellular phone may use the GPS function as an effective guide. Thus the user can significantly reduce a risk that he/she may get lost and cannot reach the destination even if an unknown place where the user visits for the first time is designated as a meeting place.
However, the intended use of the normal GPS is to obtain the location information of terminal itself. Therefore, with the cellular phone described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-341476, it is possible to know only the present location of the terminal itself. Thus it is impossible to know the present location of a terminal of the corresponding party to meet.
When the user wants to know the present location of the terminal of the corresponding party, for example, if the corresponding party carries a cellular phone, it is possible to get the present location of the corresponding party through wireless communications or e-mails with the corresponding party. However, if the user asks the corresponding party to explain the present location on the wireless phone, it could be a considerable burden to the corresponding party. In some cases, it may be difficult for the corresponding party to talk or explain on the phone. In addition, it is also time-consuming for the corresponding party to explain the present location by e-mail, and further, there may be some cases where the corresponding party cannot describe the present location well by the textual information. If the corresponding party is a stranger in the present location, the corresponding party may not have any idea about his/her present location.
In order to deal with such problem, for example, there is a mobile terminal disclosed Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-262338. According to this, each of a user and a corresponding party carries a mobile terminal provided with a GPS function, and the mobile terminals obtain their location information respectively from a GPS satellite. Then the user can obtain the location information of the corresponding party from the location information service center by use of his/her mobile terminal and, in addition can obtain the map information from the map information database.
The mobile communication terminal described in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-262338, enables the user to obtain the present location information of the mobile terminal of the corresponding party with the present location information of his/her mobile terminal using his/her mobile terminal. Moreover, it is possible to display not only the user's location but also the corresponding party's location on a map displayed on the display unit of user's mobile terminal. Thus the present location of the corresponding party can be specified easily, which enables the user to recognize easily the relationship of the locations between him/her and the corresponding party.